Follow by Email

Thursday, January 8, 2015

The 10 Most Important Sustainable Business Stories from 2014

Great article. Look for a follow up on our radio side: http://www.1320warlradio.com/main.html

It’s been an amazing 12 months in the world of sustainable business. From climate change to inequality, the scope of humanity’s biggest environmental and social challenges came into much sharper focus this year — as did the scale and range of opportunities to do something about them. And citizens, using new social media tools and old-fashioned marches, rose up to drive change. Both in response and pre-emptively, the world’s leading companies continued to aggressively pivot their businesses toward more sustainable and innovative ways of operating.

To make sense of all of this activity, I made a list of the year’s big themes, looking for the bigger story across multiple examples. But I also ran across a few specific company stories that were just really compelling or cool. So here is my admittedly subjective look at the top 10 sustainability stories and themes of the year, with sustainability broadly defined as encompassing people, planet, and profits:

1. The bad news — climate change is now.

The subtitle of this year’s summary could be “reports, reports, reports,” with important and fascinating (no, really) studies from economists, government agencies, scientific bodies, and business coalitions — all making a compelling case for action on climate change.

Over the last two years, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its fifth, multi-thousand-page assessment of global climate science. But some new, more layman-friendly voices are telling the science story and explaining how costly to business a hotter world already is. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) issued the clearest document from scientists I’ve ever seen, a pithy report telling us that “What We Know” is the following: (1) “Climate change is happening here and now,” (2) the risks of irreversible, highly damaging impacts are high, and (3) the sooner we act, the lower the cost. Another report, the U.S. National Climate Assessment, led with the statement that climate change “has moved firmly into the present.”

Adding a business perspective, a group of heavy hitters, including billionaire Michael Bloomberg and former U.S. Treasury Secretaries Hank Paulson and Robert Rubin, issued the persuasive Risky Business Report. This short paper outlines how climate is “already costing local economies billions” and describes how hundreds of billions of property are at risk.

2. The good news — tackling climate change is getting much cheaper.

Two impressive pieces of analysis made the case that moving to a clean economy is profitable – both for society and for the private sector. At the macroeconomic level, the New Climate Economy report (issued by a group of CEOs, leading economists, and former country presidents) challenged the persistent, but incorrect, view that we have to choose between expanding prosperity for billions of people and protecting our shared asset base (that is, Earth and its climate). A key point: in a world that will spend $90 trillion on infrastructure over the next 15 years anyway, the additional costs to shift that build-out to a low-carbon path, with technologies we already have, will be minimal.

But company coalitions aren’t just issuing reports — they’re making promises in line with the rapidly improving economics of renewable energy (which utilities can now obtain in many regions at prices below fossil fuels). An offshoot of We Mean Business, the RE100 group — which launched with founding members including Philips, Nestle, Mars, Swiss Re, and IKEA — committed to using 100 percent renewable power. Unilever U.S. also committed to 100 percent renewables by 2020 (Disclosure: I’m on advisory boards for both RE100 and for Unilever U.S.). A deep shift in how we generate and use power has begun.

3. The utility and energy businesses are changing fundamentally (well, some of them are).

But the old guard of the energy business made it clear that they aren’t planning to change. Exxon (and Shell) issued statements to answer concerns about their assets and reserves becoming worthless or “stranded” as the world moves away from fossil fuels. Exxon’s memo in particular is a thing of twisted beauty, daring the world to regulate the company and saying to investors, in essence, “nothing to worry about here, move along.” But the Bank of England begs to differ, saying that the “vast majority of reserves are unburnable.”

4. Serious legislation like a carbon tax — even in the U.S. — is seeming possible again.

Another arm of this growing social movement, led by 350.org, has been the campaign to divest university and institutional funds from the fossil fuel industry. This campaign got a major symbolic boost when the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation — which can trace its money back to the original oil titan John D. Rockefeller — said it would divest from fossil fuels.

No comments:

Post a Comment

This Month's RNN Webinar

RNN Social Partnership

The Business Side of Green Blog is where Peter Arpin gets to interact with the community on an ongoing basis. Here, Peter will share his thoughts and ideas when it comes to helping our community move towards a more sustainable future. Peter is also looking for your ideas and thoughts to promote and share through the Arpin Broadcast Network and its affiliates, Arpin Group, Arpin Van Lines and Arpin International Group.

Grateful

Everyone should take a moment and be thankful for all they have during this Thanksgiving week. May all of us find it in our hearts to make it a Happy Thanksgiving for someone who may need our help. Happy Thanksgiving!